SWANNY’S WORLD OF SPORT: For a result to be a genuine shock, the losers have to give a damn

Alan Swann

We live in an age where instant reactions have replaced considered thought. Everything is either ‘brilliant, the best ever’ or ‘awful, the worst in history’.

Sport or politics, there is no middle ground. Judgements are rushed and people are too proud/stubborn/arrogant to admit a sprint to Twitter and Facebook led to an ill-thought out comment.

Sutton United are delighted to have seen off a heavily weakened Leeds United team.

FA Cup weekends are full of such nonsense. The reactions of those involved with Sutton United, Lincoln City and Oxford United were amazing to behold, and not in a way I found at all in keeping with what they had actually achieved.

There has been a lot of talk about top clubs reducing the importance of the FA Cup with their team selections, but five of the Premier League’s top six have made it through to the last 16 because they have ridiculous strength in depth.

Not so those at the top of the Championship. The big three in that division Newcastle United, Brighton and Leeds United made 28 team changes between them. They fielded ‘B’ teams so was it any real surprise they were beaten by fired-up, fully committed home teams?

I’m not trying to deny lower league clubs their moment in the sun, but a dose of realism is required to dilute the exaggerated celebrations.

I was angry, irritated and upset when I watched Posh lose FA Cup ties to Dagenham, Sutton and Kidderminster, but I would imagine the Championship management teams/players/fans of the top their top three clubs all felt relief at the opportunity to concentrate on what’s really important to them, promotion to the promised land of the Premier League.

The FA Cup is all about the cash for the smaller clubs. It was quite sad to see one very young fan interviewed ahead of the fifth round draw say he wanted his team to play Manchester United because of the money they would make. More of a thrill than seeing Rooney and Ibrahimovic in the flesh then?

I wasn’t at all surprised to see Wolves players dancing on the pitch at Anfield savouring a thoroughly deserved win over Liverpool’s abject reserve/youth team.

After all this is the club that won League One with the aid of Premier League parachute payments in 2014 and celebrated like they’d won the FA Cup itself.

It’s not just the FA Cup that inspires ludicrous over-reaction.

I watched with amusement the joy of Northampton fans on Twitter after they beat Coventry in a League One match last Saturday (January 28). This is the Coventry who are bottom of the league, who have had as many managers as wins this season and who had a man harshly sent off in the first 10 minutes.

It happened in reverse at Posh whose fans went into negative meltdown after falling a whole four points off the League One play-off pace.